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Hume: No matter the cost; the arts are worth it

The arts give more than they take. The case of Toronto is no exception; however much the city funds culture, it gets more back in return.

That’s true whether you’re a bottom-liner and first nighter, the most ardent admirer and one of the cost-of-everything-and-value-of-nothing crowd.

Still, in these perilous times, the calls to cut arts funding grow ever shriller. Yet even Mayor Rob Ford and council recently committed themselves to raise the civic cultural contribution from $18 per capita per annum to a princely $25.

Of course, the conservatives have tried to turn arts funding into a morality play and to some extent have succeeded. You don’t have to go far to hear the cries of outraged philistines, the ones who don’t know much about art but know what they hate. Either it’s disgusting and immoral, elitist and decadent, incomprehensible and subversive, or all the above.

The response to the International Film Festival, backdrop to the current exercise in civic self-mutilation, has been instructive. This year’s TIFF, which received $800,000 from the city, has prompted more than the usual amount of tut-tutting from our moral guardians.

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Its sin is that it attracts dozens of rich and famous movie stars to be given handouts from the City of Toronto. Why is a city on the brink of cutting transit services to dialysis patients giving handouts to the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Madonna?

The truth, of course, is that it isn’t. Indeed, the fact is Clooney and his chums are doing us the favour. In the Celebrity Age, the presence of such luminaries and the media hordes that follow their every step confers upon the city a guarantee of another 15 minutes in the global spotlight.

That’s worth money.

And let’s not forget, while they’re here, stars, like the rest of us, need a place to sleep, food to eat and a way to get around. For local hotels, restaurants, limos, not to mention media, the film festival is a bonanza. So are Pride, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Ontario Museum and so on.

Economists estimate that this year Tiff will generate $170 million for the city. Next year, that amount will be $200 million, not a bad return on an $800,000 investment.

Even without the economics, the relationship between the arts and the city are indissoluble. The one couldn’t exist without the other. Urbanity is an essential precondition to culture as we understand it, both an industry as well as an activity. It has been for centuries.

Culture is also the name we give the process whereby we find out who we are and how we know who we are. This isn’t always pleasant, but whether we like them or not, approve of them or not, the arts are a powerful indicator of urban heath.

We shouldn’t forget that Canadians are still content to rely on an economic model largely dependent on exporting raw resources. In a knowledge-based world, that’s no longer enough.

What Canada, let alone Toronto, has yet to grasp is that in the contemporary context, the country’s great financial engines are its cities and the large suburban conurbations that surround them.

As Anne Golden, the soon-to-retire head of the Conference Board of Canada, said in a speech last week, “Canada’s prosperity depends on its major cities, not vice versa.”

“….the essential take-away,” she argued, “is that we must think of our cities as magnets of talent in order to attract the desired business investments. Creating a welcoming milieu (a high quality and socially tolerant environment with just-in-time amenities) for a top quality labour force is every bit as important as pro-business policies.”

Canada has been slow to grasp this central reality. As the ongoing debacle that is the Toronto budget debate proves, so has the city.

The significance of the arts in urban life cannot be overemphasized. If the rest of the planet knows Canada at all, it is because of its artists. If we know ourselves at all, it is because of our artists.

But instead of thinking of Toronto as a talent magnet, we treat it like a spoiled child in need of punishment. It has been sent to its room and must now be spanked.

Bad Toronto.

Rather than address the quality of life issues that will keep Toronto prosperous and worth inhabiting in future decades, we have a civic regime to whom the city’s greatest asset — its very urbanity — is its biggest drawback. This is a misunderstanding so profound it threatens the very fabric of Toronto.

Despite what our leaders tell us, Toronto’s problem isn’t that it thinks too big, but that they think too small.

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